Well, there's another Dominic in his mind, a wiser more assured entity, a guide, a guardian, who's not omniscient, but provides perspective. And Matei, has become something of a medical sensation for his new butterfly existence—he's come under the watchful of the growing Nazi party, trying to improve the race with horrific experiments in electricity.

"Youth After Youth" is complicated just at that point, part horror movie, part sci-fi, part spy movie, part war film. It defies classification, which is good. But to get through that muddle, Coppola tries some desperate acts to communicate it all, and doesn't quite pull it off, with inverted dream-sequences, picture-fades within fades, reversed film exposures. It's nice to see he's having fun (and some of that could be exhilarating as his tricks in "Dracula" were), but they're not "saying" anything. They're empty grace-notes without purpose other than to evoke, rather than communicate. It's a rich banquet of cinematic tricks, but the caloric content is nill.